Deception
by Tisserande
Summary: A woman and her wish for a 'justified' revenge lead to her being where Alagaesian history is in the making. The journey's path is completely out of her control, yet she adapts to each change in her situation in order to survive.


**Prologue – The Foundations**

They always came when she was not prepared for it.

All she had been doing in their tiny little section of the world was sweeping the yard, scolding the chickens as they burbled around her feet. You could smell the mottling scent of potage lounging out of the cottage like a fusty blanket – plain, familiar, and reliable. The cottage was simply constructed with fuddled planks of wood and pegs, shape by his broad coarse hands a handful of summers ago.

How bright the sky appeared that day! So blue, so wide! He nestled her into his chest, demanding her approval for his hard work, giving the crumbs slipped from under Nature's table a poetic nuance that belied his intellect. Wordlessly, with the amused countenance of a slowly seasoning wife, handed him a bowl of potage, sweetened gently with honey and reminded him that it was still a house, not a home. Surrounded by the freshness of their horizons, they stepped into the cottage, lit the fire and prepared to immerse into the warmth.

They had married on a promise of this house, and now it had been built. She stroked the racked smoothness of the planks as he carefully wrapped her in the larger share of the blanket and kept her close through the night. She touched the stubble upon his face, noticing how the foundations of the house had built the man who would be with her for life. She would fall asleep upon these sturdy planks, supporting and assuring her of her future. That was before they came.

They first came with a scroll that was read out in the village tavern. All able bodied young men had to enlist in the army for the good of the empire, and all those who refuse would face death.

He comforted her. He told her that it would be better for him to fight for a little extra money for any children that may come and have a chance of returning alive when the war was won, rather than leave her destitute. She was still afraid of letting him go, but she knew it was the only way of ever seeing him again. He held her closer that last night in their sturdy cottage, closer than he ever had before, and she almost believed that the foundations were trembling. She thought it must be an earthquake, sending shockwaves from a power many leagues away. They, like two passengers helpless in a little boat amongst raging waves, fought together against the swell and become a single strong force. It was intoxicating, but they knew the force would eventually be drained of energy, and blow away into the roaring winds.

So she let him go. He marched away with those thousands of men, chanting merry battle songs in where the Varden would be shown to be fools, and Galbatorix only glorious. She wondered who the Varden was, and what evil they could possibly consort against the King. She felt a twinge of resentment; they took her husband away from her, and she willed him to kill them all and to come home.

And so she settled into a routine. The army had clearly taught him to write, for letters would be delivered to the cottage, along with little pouches of money. The toothless and elderly Edgar, who claimed to be literate, would agree to read them for her in exchange for an egg at breakfast. She would stir the much diminished bowl of potage as he mumbled the phrases she pictured him writing down, his warm hand darting across the paper like the little arrows that sailed over his head just a few minutes before. She pictured these glimpses of him as she tilled the fields, piled thatch on the roof, spread feed for the children and stirred the potage. At the market, whilst bartering over a bale of wheat, she thought she saw him amongst the crowd. She blinked, but it was not him. The barterer shouted for her attention, and, irritated, reprimanded him and stuck to her original price. He is outraged, but is clearly, as a millner in hard times, desperate for wheat. He buys it with an angry reprimand against women and the economy in general, linking them in such a way she was outraged, but she let it pass as he walked further away.

She managed to come away successful in her earnings; she was even able to buy certain items normally outside her budget. She bought him a new jerkin and pair of boots, and herself a new dress as well as a bag of oats, carrots and some bread. She wrapped the jerkin and the boots neatly in the blanket, unused since the day he left, and passed it on to the messenger.

It was the depths of winter when they came again.

She was warming her hands over the fire when the door reverberated with a gentle tap. Instinctively, she knew it was news from her husband. She could feel it; another earthquake was rippling the foundations of the cottage. She opened it, bracing for the gust. I'm terribly sorry woman. Killed in action. You know how it is. Here are his possessions. He was a brave and true man, and fought with valour for the Empire.

They left. She could see the cottage tumble forward, and her knees slam against the trembling floor. The wind caused a plank to creak, dampened by the vertical rain slipping underneath the retiring sunshine. The light was fading. It was twilight. She stared down at the blood stained blanket, as if fascinated by the last remains of him being left upon an earthly body. She shut the door weakly and crawled with the blanket, eyes blinded by the rain she had brought to the world. Of course she should have stopped him! They could have escaped the storm together, survived by landing on a beautiful island where no one could find them. Yet she had been so foolish. She unfolded the blanket, her mistake laid bare, and her clothes were dampened by the downpour.

There was the jerkin, the boots, the old breeches. Why didn't she buy new breeches? He died in an old piece of clothing! No, she bought a new dress, instead of making sure he had new breeches. He might have survived the battle if he had them! She plucked at her dress furiously, daring it to rip. How could she be the survivor? It wasn't fair. Not fair at all! Strike me down where I sit, she moaned, I am guilty of a heinous crime! Burn my body in this fire, and clean this world of this misdeed before it would infect the whole world!

She tumbled forwards, and so happened to grab his jerkin. Something rustled. Surprised, she stared at the jerkin, then rummaged in one of the folds to pluck out about fifty or so pieces of parchment, none more than the size of her palm. She stared at the marks upon them, and guessed it was be writing. These were letters! But from whom? About what? At first she wanted to throw them in the fire, for they made no meaning to her, but she suddenly resisted herself – what if Edgar would consent to reading them for her?

No, no ridiculous! She didn't have fifty eggs to spare anymore – the little pouches of payment would cease to come now, and he had sent almost all he had to her. Of which she had the audacity to spend on...concentrate on the plan, woman! She would just have to take the harder route – she would have to learn how to read.

She believed she was becoming prepared.

As the grief cloaked her like a shadow with increasingly intensity as time went by, she found herself to be noticed less by the villagers. Often she would be speaking to someone, and they would suddenly find an excuse to leave her, and the women of the village, married and unmarried, ignored her as a symbol of bad luck. Confused, pride fractured, she retreated into her house, sweeping leaves of all the writing she could find. As the winter was budged painfully aside by the spring, when the evenings became longer and lighter again, when the fields were tended to, she was bent over the little scraps, feasting off them obsessively, coming back for more. She identified the letters, and tried to work out, with tenuous and frustrating attempts, to work out what they could say by remembering the context. She took the decree that called her husband out to fight and strained to remember the read out words to line them up the words. It transpired that by the time the winter came round again, she felt brave enough to pick up the letters.

The shapes slowly blurred into focus. She traced the shapes carefully, her hardened fingers bending the soft parchment. She made out the words slowly and painfully on each one, with several attempts at certain sentences. She sighed. After a week, she understood why her husband died, and what she should do.

He was shot as a political dissident. The letters contained plans to kill Galbatorix. She had to warn everyone.

Yet who on earth would believe her? A poor widow, living all alone? She would simply be accused of witchcraft and that would be that. She had no one on her side, not even her family, who would dissociate themselves with a daughter that was married to one of 'them'. They had to out of fear that they would be next.

And why did he turn against Galbatorix? He seemed so convinced that he would serve the Empire in order to benefit their promised family to build on the foundations of their cottage. What made him turn against their King so wildly that he would risk their life to kill him? Had the Varden captured him? Pour poison in his ears and let it swirl around until he was half dead in subjugation? She felt her fury rise like a repulsive vomit, gagging her. She would rip them apart with her bare hands! She would take them all on at the same time, and she would win.

However, her reverie broke when she saw the fire was dying. She sighed, and carefully covered them with rocks and curled up on the sleeping mat, sleeping easier with the bedfellow of purpose. For better or for worse, she would let the reader decide.

She was prepared, but not for it. They came.

There she was, sweeping with the chickens burbling around her ankles, the sweet winter afternoon light settling comfortably to create snow in the sky above. The Gods couldn't have created a more peaceful scene – it was made by men of hubris, ready to strike. The cottage, resplendent with planks of wood and pegs, rocked slightly in the wind. Prepared.

He advanced upon the cottage, noting its distance from the village with pleasure. He had intelligence that a widow lived in this house, her husband a traitor. If she would co-operate with his wishes, she would live. If she wouldn't, well only her loss – the only thing she could lose is her life. No one would notice her absence. She was just a little pawn for him to amuse himself with. Such was Murtagh's game.

He stalked silently behind her, and grabbed her, placing a hand over her mouth and the other over her stomach. She struggled fiercely against his grip, hitting wildly at him with the broom, which with a murmur snapped it in two. Stunned, she quietened. He leant close towards her ear, and spoke softly,

"Let me have what I want, or I will take it by force. I know who your husband was; he was a traitor and a coward, to have left you in this state of misery. If you play to my game, you will have riches beyond your imagination. If, however, you are as foolish as your husband was, I will take it all from you. See that little hovel you live in? I will burn it. It spoils the view, and I believe flames to be an attractive sight."

No! Not the foundations! They're weak but they must stay! She wished the Gods had made this day so they could punish the unjustly behaviour of this man! She could see it tremble before his power, and she struggled harder and bit his hand hard, causing blood to flow.

He howled, and before she could run, he kicked her to the ground, and his body was on top of hers. At that moment the cottage was in a rage of flames. The chickens squawked violently, attempting to run away from their inevitable fate as their feathers singed, smouldered and scorched. She cried out in pain as he leant into her. She tightened her body in an effort to stop him, but he kept pushing, pushing. She howled, and attempted to wriggle from the horror. Yet Murtagh's patience would not take this. He grabbed her with his imperial hands and threw her towards the cottage, and in the corner of her eye she saw a great red shape floating frantically into the sky.

Dazed, crazed with pain, the thought gripped – his possessions! She blindly ran into the cottage, coughing violently, and gathered up what she could see in her arms and ran out, tumbling upon the ground as the flames rushed to the sky and engulfed her world, the foundations, the past...into dust. She felt herself burn yet feel so cold – the pain licked her inside and out, and she painfully released her arms to allow a jerkin, pair of breeches and boots to fall out of her arms. No blanket, no potage, no chickens, no wood even. Just little symbols of her shame.

She felt tears pour once more. Grief. She felt a tingling confused pain across her arms, forming a scaly feel across them. She stared down at the singed away sleeves, the raging red of angry burns spread across her scrawny arms. She touches them gently, and she cries out involuntarily; the pain is nothing compared to the alien feel of her skin.

She looks at her arms. She glances over at the crumbling remains of the cottage, and back at the amassed, slightly burnt clothes. Impulsively, she snatches at a likely looking herb. She gently tugs her way out of the dress, dizzy from the pain, and tears the dress into broad strips. She bandages some around her breasts until they sit flat, and wraps the rest over her arms with the herb underneath, wincing. She then pulls on the jerkin, the breeches and finally the boots.

If they want her to play the game, she better play the game on a level playing field. She would from now on be a man.

In a previous life, she was Freya, daughter of Ethan. Now she would only know herself as Nathan, the name of her husband, and with such a weapon she would go forth and exact her revenge.

For if she came, they would be unprepared.

_(A/N – Rather longish for a first attempt, I think, but if you made it this far, I'm hopelessly grateful Be my guest to pass a judgement – I'd like to improve my writing. Hopefully Freya seems believable, if a little bit odd...)_


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